LOS ANGELES - The FCC should make broadcast networks air more independently-made TV shows, union officials representing artists and producers told an FCC media ownership hearing here late Tues. The FCC should mandate at least 25% of primetime programs be by firms not owned by networks or Hollywood studios, said Screen Actors Guild’s Anne-Marie Johnson and Taylor Hackford, vp-Directors Guild of America.
Sprint Nextel is making curbing the costs of special access its top priority on Capitol Hill and at the FCC. The carrier is taking on the fight reluctantly, but has no choice given the disappearance of the 2 biggest advocates of special access price controls, MCI and the premerger AT&T, said Robert Foosaner, Sprint chief regulatory officer. “This is not just a Sprint Nextel issue,” Foosaner said: “This is a big issue for all business… We're the ones who are willing to take the battle on.”
Rogers doesn’t think broadcasters should get HDTV carriage fees as part of possible revisions to Canada’s Broadcasting Act. The cable operator asked the Canadian Radio-TV & Telecom Commission (CRTC) to “reject any over-the- air fee for carriage model.” The regulator should “maintain the requirement for over-the-air broadcasters to build digital transmission facilities and establish a fixed date for analog shut off,” said Rogers in comments on a CRTC rulemaking.
The FCC should not grant Clarity Media a cable TV relay service license in the 2 GHz CARS And BAS bands at several of its Flying J truck stops (CD Aug 24 p8), MSTV and broadcasters said last week in separate filings to the FCC. Clarity wants to use the service to beam multiple cable channels to vehicles parked at its truck stops. “Clarity is attempting an end-run around the statutorily mandated auction rules,” MSTV said. Granting the license could hurt newsgathering near Flying J facilities, since the proposed spectrum use would create a “black hole” around the facilities in the Broadcast Auxiliary Services Band, said Red River Bcstg. The Clarity request is flawed in that it seeks a series of elaborate waivers rather than a rulemaking, said the Society of Bcst. Engineers (SBE). And if “Clarity wants to use 99% of the 2 GHz TV BAS band for a commercial direct- to-subscribers video delivery service… then the commission would be obligated to award such licenses based on a spectrum auction,” SBE said, echoing MSTV. ABC, Meredith, McGraw- Hill, Lincoln Financial and Centex TV also inveighed against Clarity’s “Trucker TV” plan.
Nothing in the “plain language” of the DTV legislation or its history calls for excluding cable or satellite households from qualifying for a DTV converter box coupon, CEA, MSTV and NAB said Mon. in rare joint comments in NTIA’s rulemaking on how the $1.5 billion program should be run. “For the same reasons, consumer eligibility should not be delimited by a means test,” said the groups.
Comcast would participate in talks on sports programming costs, cable’s “most complicated issue,” Chmn. Brian Roberts told a Thurs. Progress & Freedom Foundation lunch. “It is time to call for a serious dialogue on this subject,” Roberts said: “We are at a tipping point… you see leagues starting channels, you see college leagues starting channels.” There is a “sea change occurring with the amount of new sports channels that are created,” but with no real public debate about who should underwrite them, he said.
NASHVILLE -- FCC Chmn. Martin is circulating a notice of proposed rulemaking asking questions about cell towers and bird safety, an aide to Comr. Adelstein told PCIA Thurs. The NPRM is “balanced” and “open-ended” but tentatively will conclude that white strobe lights are the “preferred” lighting for towers based on FAA concerns, said senior legal adviser Barry Ohlson. But PCIA officials are questioning whether the FCC can doing anything about bird deaths.
Wal-Mart expects to be “one of the top sellers” of DTV converter boxes for the 2009 analog cutoff, the retailing giant told NTIA. As an “advocate” for economically hard- pressed consumers who can least afford rising energy costs, Wal-Mart urged NTIA to require “auto-power-down” defaults and other power-limit features as conditions for making boxes eligible for the $40 coupon subsidies.
Lifting nationwide cable system ownership caps might not benefit consumers, making the action hard to justify at first glance, said FCC Chmn. Martin. Speaking on a UBS teleconference, he renewed pressure for the industry to sell subscribers individual channels. Further consolidation might not reduce cable rates, which rose over the past decade while prices for other telecom services declined, he said. Many of the comments responded to investors’ questions.
The Senate Tues. passed 95-0 a measure authorizing a nationwide emergency alert system (EAS) to send warnings to a variety of communications devices. Once a freestanding bill, the Warn Act (S-1753), the measure was attached by Sen. DeMint (R-S.C.) to the port security bill. The wireless industry backs it as an alternative to an ongoing FCC rulemaking that would make the system mandatory.